From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Robert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack (March 4, 1944 – June 27, 2014) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s, when he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group the Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career spanned more than 50 years and spanned a repertoire in the styles of R&B, soul, rock and roll, doo-wop, gospel, and country.

Contents

Biography

Early Career

Taking after their father, who sang gospel music, Bobby Womack and his brothers formed their own group. Sam Cooke took an interest in the Womack Brothers, and they recorded for Cooke's SAR record label in the early 1960s. Renamed the Valentinos, and encouraged by Cooke to go in a more secular and commercial direction, they scored a hit with Womack's "It's All Over Now" in 1964; the Rolling Stones' version of the song became a major hit, earning Womack generous royalty payments.

Solo career

As a session guitarist, Womack worked at producer Chips Moman's American Studios in Memphis, and played on recordings by Joe Tex and The Box Tops. Until this point, around 1967, he had had little success as a solo artist, but at American he began to record a string of classic soul-music singles including the 1968 "What Is This" (his first chart hit), "It's Gonna Rain" and "More Than I Can Stand," all of which featured his elegant, understated rhythm-guitar work and his impassioned vocals. During this period he became known as a songwriter, contributing many songs to the repertoire of Wilson Pickett; these include "I'm in Love" and "I'm a Midnight Mover."

He continued to have hits into the '70s; these include "Lookin' for a Love" (a remake of his 1962 Valentinos single), "Across 110th Street," "Woman's Gotta Have It" (covered by James Taylor in 1976), "You're Welcome, Stop on By," and the masterful "Daylight." All are excellent examples of burnished yet gritty 1970s soul music, and reveal a pop-music sensibility akin to that of Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield.

Bobby Womack's 1981 album The Poet was a surprise hit and contained the hit single "If You Think You're Lonely Now." K-Ci Hailey, a notable admirer of Womack's work, covered "If You Think You're Lonely Now" in 1994. The song is referenced in Mariah Carey's song "We Belong Together", a number-one hit in June 2005. Carey sings "I can't sleep at night / When you are on my mind / Bobby Womack's on the radio / Singing to me: 'If you think you're lonely now.'"

Film director Quentin Tarantino used Across 110th Street (which, in a different version, had been the title song of the 1972 movie) in the opening and closing sequences of his 1997 film Jackie Brown. His work has been used in several other popular films including Meet the Parents (2000), Ali (2001) and American Gangster (2007).

A 2003Saab commercial used Womack’s interpretation of "California Dreamin'".

Controversy

In March 1965 just after he turned 21 years old--and just 3 months after Sam Cooke's December 1964 murder -- Womack created scandal by marrying Cooke's widow Barbara Campbell. Womack claimed he married Barbara for fear that if she were left alone she would do something crazy. They divorced in 1970. Things became even more complicated when his younger brother, Cecil, married Sam and Barbara's daughter Linda.